Masque
by Silken Ghost
Summary: One of the worst kinds of pain you can feel is falling head-over-heels in love with someone who could never love you back. Ginny/Cho, mild slash.


Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to J ****

Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic Inc., Warner Bros., et al.

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Author's Note: This story contains mild themes of yuri, or f/f slash. If this idea disgusts or disturbs you in any way, please do not read the story. Any flames on grounds of homophobia will be completely ignored, so don't even bother.

This was written under the influence of Shakespeare and techno music, so don't be surprised if it's a bit delusional. I might've gotten a bit wordy, and if so, I'm sorry. Please give constructive criticism rather than flames, especially flames over the subject matter.

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Masque

He exalts her—I can tell he does. The way he looks at her. The way he slips his arm around her shoulders, gently, adoringly. The way he kisses her. She's his porcelain doll—an image of perfection. A porcelain doll on a high shelf—and I, the admiring child, can't reach her, if only to scrutinise her, to hold her, for just a moment. Just watching her gives me a rush of emotion unlike anything I have ever experienced. Her hair falls about her face in soft ebony waves, and if I look too directly into those dark, dark eyes the world as I know it melts away entirely. And when she laughs—oh God, when she laughs.

I can see why he loves her so.

Watching them together, I never know what to think. I know I should be happy for her. She's found someone who really loves her and who she's capable of loving back. He makes her laugh like no one else can—a few coy words and that she's wonderfully, rapturously happy. And then she'll grasp his hand, still laughing, and kiss him gently on the lips. I always have to turn my head away—watching is too painful. Oh, to be him, only for a few short minutes—to stroke her face with my fingertips, to kiss those coral lips with all his tenderness, with all _mine_… to take her hand in mine and let myself fall into her eyes.

When I think back to the years when I thought I loved _him_, I curse myself. That wasn't love—it was a silly schoolgirl crush. I was just another adoring fan, the best friend's kid sister, and I was drawn more to the idea of him than anything else. But I was a foolish little girl then, clinging to daydreams and fascinated by the idea of loving a hero. I tried fiercely to convince myself it was true love, that he was my one and my only.

Enter my dark-eyed Aphrodite. Leave it to an angel, a goddess, to show me what love really is. But Aphrodite is always accompanied by a starry-eyed Adonis, and I am left in the shadows—watching, yearning, loving.

She is so beautifully, so tragically, unattainable. She loves him—she loves him in ways I could only dream about being loved—and it's quite mutual. I fall harder every time I see her, and my heart breaks over and over whenever I see her with him. I watch the way he weaves his fingers in her hair, how she still turns pink when their eyes meet. I speak to her often—she considers me to be one of her closest friends, now. I listen to her talk about him, love permeating in her faraway voice, when all I can do is fight the tears, put on a smile. "I'm happy for you," I always say. "I'm so very happy for you."

I hate lying to someone I love this much.

I'm trying to be happy for her—I'm trying harder than anything. She deserves to be loved by the boy she holds so dear, and I try not to be selfish. There are times when I just break down and cry into my pillow, when the only thought on my mind is, _I love her more than he does, I know I do_.

I keep trying to convince myself that he can give her the best—but I don't know if I believe it. I know that I could give her anything—that I could kiss her more tenderly, embrace her more lovingly. But it's all moot if she doesn't love me back, and how could she? I'm young, poor, and often foolish—and even if she could look past that, I'm still a girl. Good, smart girls like her don't fall in love with young fools—and they certainly don't fall in love with other girls.

I want her to be happy. It means more to me than anything—I want to know that she will be able to laugh and smile, that she will love and be loved in return. She deserves the best person for her—and I am not that person. She's in love with a boy who can make her happy, and I'm just an infatuated little girl who doesn't know what to think.

All I want is for her to live a wonderful life. And if it's not with me, there's nothing I can do but love in silence.

The masquerade will continue as planned.

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Silken Ghost

10/07/01


End file.
